The present invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for discriminating between pulses generated by alpha and/or beta radiators in a detector. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and circuit arrangement for discriminating between pulses generated in a radiation detector by alpha and/or beta radiation sources wherein the leading edges of the generated pulses rise particle specifically almost constantly during a predetermined initial time period in the nanosecond range and the slope of pulses generated by alpha particles is substantially greater than the slope of the pulses generated by beta particles.
U.S. application Ser. No. 230,505, filed February 2nd, 1981, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,400,621, by Hans Kiefer et al, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a detector for alpha and/or beta particles including a proportional counting tube with series-connected amplifier, which generates detector pulses whose leading edges linearly increase in a first approximation in a time period within the nanosecond range, e.g., the first 50 nanoseconds, and simultaneously exhibit greatly different slopes for alpha and beta pulses. This physical phenomenon regarding these differing slopes for alpha and beta particles is substantially independent of the energy of the particles and can be used for discrimination.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a method, and a circuit arrangement for implementing this method, so as to make it possible to unequivocally identify the detector pulses emitted at the output of a detector as alpha or beta pulses, independently of the pulse height determined by the particle energy.